Reeling from the treatment they endured in the internment camps of World War II America, a Japanese-American family renounces their American citizenship to move back to Hiroshima, unaware of the devastation inflicted by the atomic bomb. By the Newbery Medal-winning author of Kira-Kira. 75,000 first printing. Simultaneous eBook. - (Baker & Taylor)

Twelve-year-old Hanako and her family, reeling from their confinement in an internment camp, renounce their American citizenship to move to Hiroshima, a city devastated by the atomic bomb dropped by Americans. - (Baker & Taylor)

A Kirkus Reviews Best Middle Grade Book of 2019

A Japanese-American family, reeling from their ill treatment in the Japanese internment camps, gives up their American citizenship to move back to Hiroshima, unaware of the devastation wreaked by the atomic bomb in this piercing look at the aftermath of World War II by Newbery Medalist Cynthia Kadohata.

World War II has ended, but while America has won the war, twelve-year-old Hanako feels lost. To her, the world, and her world, seems irrevocably broken.

America, the only home she’s ever known, imprisoned then rejected her and her family—and thousands of other innocent Americans—because of their Japanese heritage, because Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

Japan, the country they’ve been forced to move to, the country they hope will be the family’s saving grace, where they were supposed to start new and better lives, is in shambles because America dropped bombs of their own—one on Hiroshima unlike any other in history. And Hanako’s grandparents live in a small village just outside the ravaged city.

The country is starving, the black markets run rampant, and countless orphans beg for food on the streets, but how can Hanako help them when there is not even enough food for her own brother?

Hanako feels she could crack under the pressure, but just because something is broken doesn’t mean it can’t be fixed. Cracks can make room for gold, her grandfather explains when he tells her about the tradition of kintsukuroi—fixing broken objects with gold lacquer, making them stronger and more beautiful than ever. As she struggles to adjust to find her place in a new world, Hanako will find that the gold can come in many forms, and family may be hers. - (Simon and Schuster)

A Kirkus Reviews Best Middle Grade Book of 2019

A Japanese-American family, reeling from their ill treatment in the Japanese internment camps, gives up their American citizenship to move back to Hiroshima, unaware of the devastation wreaked by the atomic bomb in this piercing look at the aftermath of World War II by Newbery Medalist Cynthia Kadohata.

World War II has ended, but while America has won the war, twelve-year-old Hanako feels lost. To her, the world, and her world, seems irrevocably broken.

America, the only home she's ever known, imprisoned then rejected her and her family'and thousands of other innocent Americans'because of their Japanese heritage, because Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

Japan, the country they've been forced to move to, the country they hope will be the family's saving grace, where they were supposed to start new and better lives, is in shambles because America dropped bombs of their own'one on Hiroshima unlike any other in history. And Hanako's grandparents live in a small village just outside the ravaged city.

The country is starving, the black markets run rampant, and countless orphans beg for food on the streets, but how can Hanako help them when there is not even enough food for her own brother?

Hanako feels she could crack under the pressure, but just because something is broken doesn't mean it can't be fixed. Cracks can make room for gold, her grandfather explains when he tells her about the tradition of kintsukuroi'fixing broken objects with gold lacquer, making them stronger and more beautiful than ever. As she struggles to adjust to find her place in a new world, Hanako will find that the gold can come in many forms, and family may be hers. - (Simon and Schuster)

Cynthia Kadohata is the author of the Newbery Medal–winning book Kira-Kira, the National Book Award winner The Thing About Luck, the Jane Addams Peace Award and Pen USA Award winner Weedflower, Cracker!, Outside Beauty, A Million Shades of Gray, Half a World Away, and several critically acclaimed adult novels, including The Floating World. She lives with her hockey-playing son and dog in West Covina, California.

Julia Kuo is the creator of 20 Ways to Draw a Cat and 44 Other Awesome Animals as well as the charming board book Everyone Eats. Julia also created the cover and interior artwork for Newbery Medal–winning author Cynthia Kadohata’s The Thing About Luck and Place I Belong and New York Times bestselling author Jenny Han’s Clara Lee and the Apple Pie Dream. She lives in Chicago. - (Simon and Schuster)

Cynthia Kadohata is the author of the Newbery Medal'winning book Kira-Kira, the National Book Award winner The Thing About Luck, the Jane Addams Peace Award and Pen USA Award winner Weedflower, Cracker!, Outside Beauty, A Million Shades of Gray, Half a World Away, and several critically acclaimed adult novels, including The Floating World. She lives with her hockey-playing son and dog in West Covina, California.

Julia Kuo is the creator of 20 Ways to Draw a Cat and 44 Other Awesome Animals as well as the charming board book Everyone Eats. Julia also created the cover and interior artwork for Newbery Medal'winning author Cynthia Kadohata's The Thing About Luck and Place I Belong and New York Times bestselling author Jenny Han's Clara Lee and the Apple Pie Dream. She lives in Chicago. - (Simon and Schuster)

Booklist Reviews

*Starred Review* Hanako has experienced much in her 12 years. Her father owned a restaurant, but when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, she and her family, like more than 100,000 Nikkei, were put into internment camps. That life was difficult, yet there were familiarities as well. Now, she and her parents and little brother, Akira, are on a boat to Japan to live with her grandparents on a tenant farm near Hiroshima. In a story that is both beautifully crafted yet utterly true to a child's innermost thoughts and feelings, Kadohata brings Hanako to a war-ravaged country, where being hungry is a fact of life and possibilities seem small. And yet: here there are grandparents who adore her and teach her new ways; it's a place where she learns how to balance tenderness and selfishness; and as she absorbs her new surroundings, Hanako becomes wedded to her heritage, discovering what families do, in ways big and small, to make one another safe and happy. As she has shown in her previous books, including the Newbery Medal–winning Kira-Kira (2004), Kadohata is superb at writing relationships, and here each unfolds like a flower. Mostly, the relationships here are intergenerational, but Hanako also meets a boy scarred from the Hiroshima bomb. The sting and purity of their interactions, as well as the history interwoven there and throughout the novel, make an indelible impression. Another gift from Kadohata to her readers. Grades 4-7. Copyright 2019 Booklist Reviews.

Horn Book Magazine Reviews

They had been such proud Americans—working hard at their San Francisco restaurant and hopeful for the future. Then came Pearl Harbor, and Hanako, her little brother, and their parents (along with thousands of other Japanese Americans) were forced into internment camps, losing everything. At the war's conclusion, disillusioned with their adopted country and pressured by the government, Hanako's parents renounce their American citizenships and return to Japan. On her way to her paternal, tenant-farmer grandparents' home outside of Hiroshima, Hanako is overwhelmed by and horrified at the devastation. Kadohata (Newbery winner for Kira-Kira, rev. 3/04) does a magnificent job communicating this for young readers through two survivors of the atomic bomb—a maimed boy and his sister who move in and out of the story and repeatedly challenge Hanako, logistically and ethically. On the hardscrabble farm, Hanako struggles to settle in, but daily hardships such as food scarcity are mitigated by the prodigious unconditional love of her grandparents. The introspective girl observes and reflects throughout this engrossing novel—grappling with how to respond to other sufferers, adjusting to a completely different way of living, and wondering what the future holds for her. Using a close third-person voice, Kadohata brings readers tightly inside Hanako's psyche as she struggles to make the right choices and comprehend the incomprehensible. With occasional black-and-white illustrations by Kuo, this is a book to sink deeply into—one that may cause readers to consider, to empathize, and to recognize the strength and power of people in the most challenging of circumstances. monica edinger September/October p.90 Copyright 2019 Horn Book Magazine Reviews.

Kirkus Reviews

A family battered by war crosses an ocean to settle in a land still mired in suffering. Twelve-year-old Hanako, her 5-year-old brother, and her parents were interned along with over 110,000 other Japanese-Americans during World War II. Papa, who agitated for the internees' civil rights, was separated and targeted for especially harsh treatment. Having lost their restaurant and now disillusioned by America, they become expatriates, traveling to Hiroshima Prefecture to live as struggling tenant farmers with Hanako's paternal grandparents. There they confront harsh social inequities, the impact of the atomic bomb, and the privations of postwar life. Even as she is embraced with warm, unconditional love by Jiichan and Baachan, Hanako struggles to adjust. She is clearly a foreigner in the land of her forebears, an identity crisis that's exacerbated by extreme hunger, encounters with survivors of the bombing, and her loving parents' emotional stress. The third-person limited narration vividly captures Hanako's literal and figurative journeys as she faces complex moral dilemmas, deals with cultural dislocation and terrible uncertainty, and tries to lift the spirits of those around her. Superb characterization and an evocative sense of place elevate this story that is at once specific to the experiences of Japanese-American expatriates and yet echoes those of many others. Final art not seen. Full of desperate sadness and tremendous beauty. (afterword) (Historical fiction. 10-14) Copyright Kirkus 2019 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved.

Publishers Weekly Reviews

With trademark faith in her protagonist's resilience, Kadohata (Checked) depicts an ugly chapter of history through the eyes of 12-year-old Hanako, whose parents were coerced into renouncing their American citizenship in a U.S. internment camp during WWII. After their release, they emigrate to her father's family farm outside Hiroshima. Stepping off the train, Hanako immediately encounters bedraggled soldiers and people who barely survived the U.S. bombing, and she is embraced by her warm, good-humored grandparents. The push-pull between humanity's best and worst and between acceptance and resistance are at the heart of this powerful and joyful work. Hanako's philosophical awakening goes much deeper than the caught-between-cultures dilemma that the title implies. The girl forms her moral compass in an environment fraught with desperate decisions (should she give food to the bomb-scarred beggar boy or to her own little brother?), but in Kadohata's confident hands, the drama is threaded with light, like the kintsukuroi—broken pottery mended with gold seams—that Hanako's grandfather shows her. Kadohata's plainspoken storytelling, in which small things, such as mochi cakes, inspire rapture, and moving halfway around the world is taken more or less in stride, will resonate with adults as well as young readers. Final art not seen by PW. Ages 10–14. (May)

School Library Journal Reviews

Gr 5 Up—World War II has ended and 12-year-old Hanako, her five-year old brother Akira, and their American-born parents have spent the past four years imprisoned in a series of internment camps. Hana's parents accept an offer from the U.S. government to renounce their American citizenship and expatriate to Japan. Their plan is to live with Hanako's father's parents, poor tenant farmers outside the city of Hiroshima. Hanako is hopeful for her family's new chance in Japan and immediately loves her Jiichan and Baachan but is faced with the realities of life in an unfamiliar, war-blighted country. Resources are scarce; as her family toils endlessly to keep food in the house, Hanako is torn between providing for her family and sharing what little she has with the people she encounters around Hiroshima. In her trademark style, Kadohata unfurls the complex web of the girl's inner thoughts in a concise yet cutting third-person narrative. Hanako attempts to discern what it means to be good and how to belong in a place where one is not truly welcome. An afterword gives further details on the history of internment and expatriate Americans in Japan. VERDICT A first purchase for collections needing complex and emotionally impactful historical fiction.—Darla Salva Cruz, Suffolk Cooperative Library System, Bellport, NY